Northern Illinois University needs more Houses for Students

The majority of off campus living at Northern Illinois University are apartments, townhouses, and fraternity and sorority houses. However, there seems to be a major lack of houses that are available for students to rent for the year. I have personally wanted an old house with a yard and a basement when I went to college for quite some time. Now that I am here and currently looking for a place to live off of campus for next year, I have realized that most companies only rent out apartments and townhouses, but they have quite a lack of houses for rent. If they have a few houses for rent they are either, connected to apartments or rented out by room and not the whole house. Today I went driving around to look for houses for rent and only saw but a few. It seemed as if real people with families lived here right by campus. For example, Western Illinois University has many houses that are available for rent by students. I have heard wonderful things about the social life there. The houses had yards and basements; the tenants of the house would have bands play in their backyards. This is also the case at many other schools but seems as if NIU is lacking. Here at NIU, people are unable to have bands play in their non existing backyards. When people have parties it becomes quite overcrowded and can become quite a fire hazard. Neighbors may also become quite angry because it is but a wall that is between their apartment and another. The solution is quite simple; rezone the houses around campus to be rented to students only much like what was done in the movie old school. This would create a better environment for many students, like me, that enjoy living in a house. Another benefit to living in a house is that many of the houses, such as those on Russell and Normal are much closer to campus than the apartments and townhouses in College Park.